In the basement of the sportswear shop i work in is a fire exit. It opens out onto a network of tunnels that extends all the way along the street. Every shop basement opens out onto the tunnels.. When we go on our twice-weekly expedition to empty the dustbins of discarded paper and plastic bags, it's almost like another, hidden city. Music seeps through the doors. Hip-hop, clattering pans and steam waft from the kitchens of the bar next door. Radio 2 from the charity shop further along.

Also, there are doors that lead to nowhere but a wall of concrete, because this small underworld is slowly shrinking.
The council have taken up the pavement outside and have prized the ceiling from some old rooms in front of the shop. Today i could see down there. There are tiled walls, there are wooden doors with paint peeling from them. There are old metal light switches, and plug sockets with round holes instead of square.
They were blocking the locked doorways between the living and dead cellar-spaces with breezeblocks today. Tomorrow the dead cellar spaces will be filled with concrete.

It gave me an odd idea. There's a church across the road. The churchyard is in places paved with old, evicted gravestones.

"Soil is for pussies. I want to get buried in concrete, like a gangsta!"